3 Popular Side Hustles That Don’t Work

So-called ‘side hustles’ have become extremely common among millennials. It is uncommon to find fully dedicated employees who work from 9-5 without having something else that earns a little income on the side. In this article, we will look at three popular side hustles that simply don’t work.

Multi-Level Marketing Schemes

Multi-level marketing schemes want you to join them, buy their products at discounted prices for resale and recruit more people to then earn from your recruits’ sales. The model, which works like a pyramid scheme, only benefits those on top of the pyramid and it is extremely difficult for people new to the scheme to make any money at all.

Affiliate Marketing via Social Media Channels

Affiliate marketing is an excellent way for bloggers and authority sites to generate revenue through referrals and recommendations you give to potential buyers. Affiliate marketing works with through links and banners that include referral codes linked to the publisher’s name.

Having said that, if you think you can do these on social media, think again. Most people on Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook are not looking to make purchases. Instead, they want to interact with their social network and read interesting content. While many uninformed internet marketers like to promote the idea that you can earn an affiliate income by tweeting affiliate links or posting them on Facebook, in reality, that does not work. Unless you are Kim Kardashian or Kanye West, no one will purchase an unknown product just because you tweeted a link and said they should check it out.

Trading Binary Options

In my post titled Trading Binary Options Isn’t Trading – It’s Gambling, I outlined the reasons why no one should ever “trade” binary options as it isn’t trading at all. Binary options are uneven bets on markets that are intended to replicate the market of underlying assets such as a stock index, a currency pair or a commodity.

Binary options brokers regularly promote their services as a great way to make money online. In reality, it is mathematically impossible to earn money by betting with binary options in the long run. The odds in binary options markets as always against you so don’t waste your time on this alledged “side hustle”.

Alex founded SmartMoneySmartLiving.com in 2015 to empower millennials to take control of their financial future. He is a former bond trader who is passionate about cryptocurrency, blockchain technology and investing.